


It’s Not Your Fault

by Nightwrite20



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24236407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightwrite20/pseuds/Nightwrite20
Summary: It’s September 19, just over a week after the the Genoa retraction, and Jim is getting more and more worried about Mac. Of course, everyone’s mood is dismal these days, and no one is well rested, but Mac seems to be taking it the hardest. She seems distracted and unfocused, which is completely unlike her.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	It’s Not Your Fault

** It’s not your fault **

It’s September 19, just over a week after the the Genoa retraction, and Jim is getting more and more worried about Mac. Of course, everyone’s mood is dismal these days, and no one is well rested, but Mac seems to be taking it the hardest. She seems distracted and unfocused, which is completely unlike her.

Usually she was ready to start the first rundown meeting of the day sharply at 11, but one day last week and again yesterday, Jim had gone to her office at 11:15 to see if she wanted him to start without her.

Then, in yesterday’s meeting, she seemed to forget what she was saying in the middle of a sentence. She stopped talking and stared off into space for a moment, before shaking her head and saying “never mind. Jim, what’s next?”

He is worried about her, but doesn’t know what to do. He is trying to put out as many fires as he can before they get to her, to lessen her stress, but sometimes that doesn’t seem to help. Yesterday she had snapped at him because he ordered lunch for her without checking to see what she wanted. He was trying to avoid interrupting her, and he has known her long enough to know her general sandwich preferences, but apparently she was not in the mood for a club sandwich yesterday. 

She had said “I don’t understand why they have to put so much God damn bread in these sandwiches! Why do you need bread in the middle of a fucking sandwich? I wish you’d ask me what I wanted, Jim. Now I have all this extra bread to deal with! What the hell am I supposed to do with all this bread? Why didn’t you just ask me so I could tell you I didn’t want a club sandwich!!!!”

He didn’t take it personally; he knew it wasn’t about the sandwich and that it wasn’t even really about him. She just felt like she was losing control, and he was a safe enough person with whom she could let off some of that pent up tension.

“Take it easy, Mac,” he had said. “Just take off the bread you don’t want and-“ then he had to duck because she was throwing bread at him.

“Ok, ok-“ he held up his hands as if in surrender and backed out of her office. She’d apologized later, and he had shrugged it off. But he’s worried about her. Not that it was unlike her to yell and throw things at him, but this was different, somehow.

The truth is, he misses her. It seems like ever since the whole New Hampshire incident, they have been off from one another. He understood she was miffed at him for giving up the Romney interview, and he didn’t blame her. But he sometimes felt like he had traded Mac’s respect for a relationship with Hallie, and that wasn’t a trade he had intended to make. He liked Hallie, a lot. But he needed Mac. She pushed him to be be the best version of himself, called him out when he needed it, and praised him just enough to keep up his confidence. She had said she was happy that he was happy with Hallie, but somehow things just felt off between them.

The fact that they had been on opposite sides of the Genoa situation hadn’t helped. Jim had to admit, it had stung more than a little when she went with Jerry Dantana’s recommendation to air the story, against his objections. He felt like she was choosing Jerry over him, even after all they had been through together. He had spoken up at the red team meetings, but once the decision was made, he knew his job was to support her, and he would keep that commitment no matter what happened. He would never say “I told you so” to Mac, at least not about anything serious, but the truth was, those words had gone through his mind when the truth was revealed. 

And then there was the guilt he felt. He never should have gone to New Hampshire at all. He should have stayed and made himself figure things out. He had run away from his responsibilities, he had suggested Jerry Dantana, and he had broken Mac’s trustenough to allow her to take Dantana’s advice over his. Genoa was his fault too, and he hated seeing Mac try to shoulder the blame.

So on Wednesday morning, Jim came in to the office early, hoping to talk to Mac before most of the other staff arrived. He put his messenger bag down at his chair and looked over at Mac’s office. She was sitting at her desk, with a stack of newspapers and a row of highlighters in front of her. He took a deep breath and walked to her door.

“Good morning,” he said, and she jumped.

“God, Jim, don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re here early,” she observed

“Yeah,” he said, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She put down her pen and looked at him a bit skeptically.

“Is this about the sandwich? I’m sorry, yesterday was just-“

“No, of course not. God, Mac, do you really think I would come to work this early in the morning to talk about a sandwich?”

She smiles. “Sorry. Do you want to sit down? What’s going on? And no, you can’t go to New Hampshire. You aren’t going anywhere.” Her tone is teasing, but there is also a serious note to it. He guesses she has heard that all the senior staff plans to resign as soon as she and Will and Charlie do, and that she will try to talk him out of it. But he doesn’t want to talk about him right now. He is worried about her.

So he sits in the chair across from her desk and looks at her, seeing the circles under her eyes and the worry in her shoulders.

“Mac,” he begins, “I want to tell you something, and I want you to let me finish before you cut me off.”

“Ok...” she says hesitantly.

“Promise?” He asks.

“That’s a lot to ask of a news producer. I hear a lot of pitches, you know.”

He smiles. “I know. But I really need to tell you this.”

“Ok,” she sighs, “let’s hear it.”

“Mac, Genoa was not your fault.”

“Well, I didn’t order the operation, if that’s what you mean.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. The story. It wasn’t your fault.”

She opens her mouth to protest but he holds up a hand and reminds her, “you promised,” and she closes her mouth and nods.

“I know you think it is, and I understand why you feel that way, but is just wasn’t. No one is blaming you except you. You’ve got to stop shouldering the whole blame. We were all part of it. And we’ve got to get through this together.”

“Jim, it is really sweet of you to say that, but it just isn’t true. You of all people know that.”

“What? What do you mean, me of all people?”

She gives him a look, as if he should already know this. “Because you tried to talk me out of it, and I didn’t listen. I should have. I owe you an apology for that. You have followed me to the ends of the earth and you have always had my back, and I didn’t-“

He interrupts her. “That’s because I gave you reason not to trust me.”

“What? What are you talking about? You’ve never given me any reason not to trust you.”

“Mac, come on. The whole New Hampshire thing? First I insisted on leaving, leaving my job and my responsibilities, leaving you to have to depend on somebody you didn’t know. All because I fucked up with Maggie. Then, I gave the interview away. So of course you didn’t trust me. I lost your trust.”

She stares at him. “Jim. Really? That’s what you think happened?” He nods. She groans and shakes her head.

“No, no, no, that’s not it at all! I’ve never stopped trusting you. At all. It’s just-“ she pauses, and he looks at her curiously. “I was having a drink with Don one night, and we were talking, and he said that the reason I didn’t trust Jerry was because he wasn’t you. He seemed to think, and Jerry thought, that I  _ only _ trusted you. Which isn’t true. Well, not entirely true anyway. But I have always trusted you the most. And when you went to New Hampshire, I realized that wasn’t fair to you. I couldn’t expect you to always be beside me. Someday, you are going to get an opportunity too good to pass up, because you are good, you are amazing, and you are going to have an spectacular career. I didn’t want to hold you back just because I needed you. I realized sooner or later I was going to have to learn to trust other people too.“

Jim just stares at her. “Really?”

“Yes! Absolutely! I just chose the wrong person to start trusting.”

Jim laughs. “Well your first mistake was to go out drinking with Don.”

She smiles. “I’m sorry, Jim. I should have talked to you about it. I never meant for you to think I didn’t trust you. Not for a minute. And I am  really sorry I didn’t listen to you about Genoa.”

“Mac,  _ you _ are the one who gave me an opportunity too good to pass up. I can’t imagine a better career in journalism than working with you.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, but you might not always-“

“Mac, come on,” heinterrupts her. “Maybe someday I will end up somewhere else, but I am definitely not looking for that anytime soon, and New Hampshire sure wasn’t my golden opportunity. I’m the one who left you in the position to have this happen. Genoa was not your fault. You have to let me take some of the blame for this, Mac.”

“Jim, you know I can’t do that, it just isn’t-“

They are interrupted by a beep from her computer and she glances over, but they both already know what that beep means.

“News alert, it’s red,” she says, at the same time that Jim is on his feet and leaning toward her computer.

“What is it?” He asks. She reads it first, and looks at him with worried eyes.

“A car bombing in Peshawar,” she says.

“Shit.”

Like a light switch, they are both immediately switched over to “newsroom emergency” mode. Within seconds, they are out of her office, calling out directions to the few other staff who have also arrived early, texting the others to get there as soon as possible, and on the phone making calls. This frenetic pace continues for several hours. For Mac and Jim, a bombing in Peshawar is more than just another news story. They’ve been on the road where the bombing occurred. They have known people killed by similar bombing incidents.

But even in the heaviness of this day, and in the busyness of their work, they both feel just a bit lighter and freer.

_She still trusts me_ , Jim thinks, greatly relieved. That knowledge sustains him through yet another long, tough day.

_Ever loyal Jim_ , Mackenzie thinks. And for the first time since the Genoa retraction, she feels a tiny bit less alone. 


End file.
